According to those theories, victims were either drugged, kidnapped while intoxicated or simply knocked out, then dropped or dragged into the tunnels through trapdoors called deadfalls. Once in the tunnels, they were locked in specially designed prison cells and held captive until they were shipped off as slave laborers.
During Prohibition , it is said that bars moved their operations underground, as well, making it easier than ever for unsuspecting victims to be shanghaied. Entire scenarios about the practices and experiences of the shanghaied in the tunnels have been created and elaborated on over the years. The catacombs beneath Portland do exist and the stories almost sound plausible, but is the legend true?
What evidence exists to support the allegations that these tunnels were used for shanghaiing? Is there any evidence at all? You can take a tour aimed at demonstrating the validity of the Shanghai legend and decide for yourself, but so far the evidence does appear to be scanty to say the least. You can imagine that what is there, could have been created any time rather than during the 19th century. What they doubt is the connection between the tunnels, the basements of hotels and bars, and the kidnapping.
The practice was known as shanghaiing, and the alleged tunnels are known today as Shanghai tunnels. While historians have found no evidence to substantiate the existence of a tunnel network, the myth has persisted. The tunnels are said to have run between buildings and under streets in the downtown waterfront area and to have extended west as far as Northwest 23 rd Avenue and along the east bank of the Willamette River. Some 1, or more men are said to have been abducted annually, and some people have claimed that the tunnels were used to facilitate kidnapping women for prostitution.
Shanghaiing describes the practice of kidnapping a man for service aboard a sailing ship. The practice arose out of the web of international maritime law and practices in the nineteenth century, when a captain ruled his crew through a labor contract.
During the first flush of the California gold rush in , crews often deserted en masse in San Francisco, where the lures of fortune and climate gave rise to a port that became infamous for shanghaiing.
The wheat arrived by riverboat and rail from the Columbia River basin, and a fleet of sailing vessels arrived in late summer. The ships took on wheat for Liverpool, England, and for ports in Asia and Europe. By the time a ship had arrived in Portland, the arduous sail across the Atlantic and around Cape Horn from Europe or across the Pacific often induced disaffection among the crew.
The development of large, steam-powered ships that required trained crews to operate and that were financed, built, and managed by international corporations, hastened the demise of sailing ships, as did reforms in international maritime law and its enforcement.
Steamships also provided better working conditions and more stable employment for seamen, with the result that shanghaiing had ceased by the end of World War I. In , journalist Stewart Holbrook broadcast stories of shanghaiing and bawdy times on the Portland waterfront in a series of romanticized articles in the Sunday Oregonian. His stories, several of dubious authenticity or attribution, contributed to the emergence many years later of stories of a network of underground tunnels used for the shanghai trade.
In the s, articles appeared in Portland newspapers featuring Michael P. Rationalists may roll their eyes, but conspiracy theorists and fans of the weird and bizarre may want to look and see for themselves.
Today, ghost tours are available to eager tourists, claiming to take wide-eyed wanderers through the streets and underground passages that served these sinister purposes so many years ago. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK".
Sign Up. Travel Guides. Maya Seaman is a SoCal-born writer who traded palm trees for pines when she moved to Portland in Read More. Local lore has it that a labyrinth of interconnected basements, makeshift rooms and low-ceilinged tunnels ran all the way to the waterfront, making it easy to sneak illegal goods including shanghaied victims between shore and ship. Some say the tunnels were also used as secret passageways to underground brothels, opium dens and gambling houses, or as temporary prisons for kidnapped men and women.
How much of the tales are true is hotly debated, since many of the tunnels are currently inaccessible or collapsed. Due to a restaurant closure in October of , the Shanghai Tunnels are no longer accessible.
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